119-471: The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street , Soho . Established by the actress Frances Maria Kelly in 1840, it opened as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley . The theatre's opening was ill-fated, and it was little used for a decade. It changed its name twice and was used by an opera company, amateur drama companies and for French pieces. In 1861, it
238-454: A debtors' prison . After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was an indefatigable letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights , education and other social reforms. Dickens's literary success began with
357-802: A travelogue , American Notes for General Circulation . In Notes , Dickens includes a powerful condemnation of slavery which he had attacked as early as The Pickwick Papers , correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens's views on racial inequality. For instance, he has been criticised for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Eyre 's harsh crackdown during
476-456: A brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Catherine stayed at a little farm on Hampstead Heath for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary; the character he fashioned after her, Rose Maylie , he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction, and, according to Ackroyd, he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of Little Nell and Florence Dombey. His grief
595-536: A burlesque by W. S. Gilbert , The Merry Zingara . The theatre was managed by Henrietta Hodson during the early 1870s. She also produced mostly burlesques and comedies, including Gilbert's The Realm of Joy and Ought We to Visit her? In 1872, it became known as the Royalty Theatre and retained this name (although it was occasionally known as the New Royalty Theatre). On 25 March 1875
714-747: A clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter , in Chatham. This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House and the family (except for Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term at school) moved to Camden Town in London. The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts and, living beyond his means, John Dickens
833-798: A few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs Pipchin" in Dombey and Son . Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court , Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman ... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in The Old Curiosity Shop . On Sundays—with his sister Frances , free from her studies at
952-460: A fire broke out on Dean Street. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries but nobody else was hurt. The building that caught fire was gutted. The start of a dramatic change to Dean Street began in March 2010 as the demolition commenced of an entire block (Great Chapel Street and Dean Street) in preparation for a western entrance to the new Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road , which would have
1071-581: A freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield . Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris. In 1832, at
1190-525: A friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth , the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise , Benjamin Disraeli , Edward Bulwer-Lytton and George Cruikshank . All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at
1309-460: A good school: "Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield ." Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn , as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. He
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#17327733446711428-473: A great success, with Brandon Thomas 's play Charley's Aunt in 1892, its popularity led to its transference after only a month to the larger Globe Theatre . In 1895–96 the Royalty's manager was Arthur Bourchier , and the theatre underwent another renovation, by architect Walter Emden . Bourchier produced, among other plays, The Chili Widow , an adaptation of his own that ran for over 300 nights. In 1899,
1547-488: A home for the redemption of fallen women of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named Urania Cottage , in the Lime Grove area of Shepherd's Bush , which he managed for ten years, setting
1666-422: A lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age". As he recalled to John Forster (from Life of Charles Dickens ): The blacking-warehouse
1785-458: A light tasteful manner." It turned out that the machinery was too heavy to be worked by people, and Stephenson had to use a horse. On the opening night, 25 May 1840, three pieces were presented: Summer and Winter , by Morris Barnett ; a melodrama, The Sergeant's Wife ; and a farce, The Midnight Hour . The opening was unsuccessful, and within a week the theatre was closed. Kelly's high admission charges of five or seven shillings did not help, but
1904-462: A major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). Both journals contained a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and dealt with aspects in the culture. For example, the latter journal included Dickens' assessment of Madame Tussauds wax museum on Baker Street, which he called "something more than an exhibition, it is an institution." In 1854, at
2023-433: A major impact on the area. From north to south: 51°30′50″N 0°07′58″W / 51.51389°N 0.13278°W / 51.51389; -0.13278 Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens ( / ˈ d ɪ k ɪ n z / ; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist , journalist , short story writer and social critic . He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and
2142-425: A mother find her proper sphere inside the home: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women. Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it
2261-488: A portmanteau he inhabited long before The Economist took it up. For a writer who made his reputation crusading against the squalor of the Industrial Revolution , Dickens was a creature of capitalism; he used everything from the powerful new printing presses to the enhanced advertising revenues to the expansion of railroads to sell more books. Dickens ensured that his books were available in cheap bindings for
2380-417: A pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying
2499-676: A pseudonym for some years. Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname 'Moses', which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens , after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield . When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses"—later shortened to Boz . Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." Dickens contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835,
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#17327733446712618-549: A renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America. The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School , caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and
2737-595: A reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information might have to be produced in court, they refused to make further disclosures. Owing to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court. Angela Burdett Coutts , heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens in May 1846 about setting up
2856-403: A satire on the judicial system, helped support a reformist movement that culminated in the 1870s legal reform in England. A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is regarded as his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. The term Dickensian
2975-440: A significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works. At about this time, he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, Augustus , worked (John Chapman & Co). It had been carried out by Thomas Powell , a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell
3094-505: A trip 30 miles into Illinois . During his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising the question of international copyright laws and the pirating of his work in America. He persuaded a group of 25 writers, headed by Washington Irving , to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it
3213-422: A work called The Life of Our Lord (1846), a book about the life of Christ, written with the purpose of sharing his faith with his children and family. In a scene from David Copperfield , Dickens echoed Geoffrey Chaucer 's use of Luke 23:34 from Troilus and Criseyde (Dickens held a copy in his library), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have
3332-603: Is a lecture hall by day and a venue for the Sadler's Wells Theatre company by night. Dean Street Dean Street is a street in Soho , central London , running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue . It crosses Old Compton Street and is linked to Frith Street by Bateman Street . In 1764 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , then a young boy, gave a recital at 21 Dean Street. Admiral Nelson stayed in Dean Street
3451-462: Is a public house that was the unofficial headquarters of Charles de Gaulle and the French resistance during World War II . The street has an association with healthcare. Over the years there have been various hospitals on the street including pioneering establishments for prevention and cure of diseases. The Royal Ear Hospital occupied number 10. An early maternity hospital was also located here and
3570-554: Is now the Hart Brothers restaurant Quo Vadis . The Marxes shared their house in Dean Street with Italian teachers and a cook and were very poor while living in the street. Their rooms were described by one visitor as being in "One of the worst, therefore one of the cheapest, quarters of London..." Three of their five children died while living here, all in infancy. Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels also lived in an apartment at 28 Dean Street. The French House in Dean Street
3689-520: Is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era . His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth , Dickens left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father John was incarcerated in
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3808-573: Is the Sam Weller Bump." A publishing phenomenon, John Sutherland called The Pickwick Papers "[t]he most important single novel of the Victorian era". The unprecedented success led to numerous spin-offs and merchandise including Pickwick cigars, playing cards, china figurines, Sam Weller puzzles, Weller boot polish and joke books. The Sam Weller Bump testifies not merely to Dickens's comic genius but to his acumen as an "authorpreneur",
3927-495: Is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters. Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsea Island ( Portsmouth ), Hampshire , the second of eight children of Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow; 1789–1863) and John Dickens (1785–1851). His father
4046-710: The Comédie-Française appeared here in the 1880s, when the Royalty was 'the recognized home of the Parisian drama.' The opening of Shaftesbury Avenue and of larger new theatres in that neighbourhood, including the Lyric Theatre and the Apollo Theatre , drew audiences away from the Royalty, and in the 1890s the Royalty was not prospering. In 1891, the theatre started a policy of modern drama. Ibsen 's Ghosts premièred, to predictable outrage, at
4165-735: The Corn Laws . Dickens lasted only ten weeks on the job before resigning due to a combination of exhaustion and frustration with one of the paper's co-owners. A Francophile, Dickens often holidayed in France and, in a speech delivered in Paris in 1846 in French, called the French "the first people in the universe". During his visit to Paris, Dickens met the French literati Alexandre Dumas , Victor Hugo , Eugène Scribe , Théophile Gautier , François-René de Chateaubriand and Eugène Sue . In early 1849, Dickens started to write David Copperfield . It
4284-470: The Lock Hospital too was in Dean Street, Lock being a euphemism for venereal disease . Today there are two Sexual Health clinics on Dean Street: 56 Dean Street , and Dean Street Express at number 34, opposite Royalty Mews. Dean Street has in recent years been a centre of the creative and advertising industries including film and video editing facilities; this was especially true from the 1960s to
4403-618: The Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle ' s music critic, George Hogarth . Hogarth invited him to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house—excited by Hogarth's friendship with Walter Scott (whom Dickens greatly admired) and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters: Georgina, Mary and 19-year-old Catherine. Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began
4522-620: The New Royalty Theatre , and had it altered and redecorated by "M. Bulot, of Paris, Decorator in Ordinary to his Imperial Majesty, Louis Napoleon", with "cut-glass lustres, painted panels, blue satin draperies and gold mouldings". In the opening programme, di Rhona danced, the leader of the Boston Brass Band from America played a bugle solo, and a melodrama, Atar Gull , was performed, with a 14-year-old Ellen Terry in
4641-608: The RMS Britannia during their first trip to the United States and Canada. At this time Georgina Hogarth , another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870. Dickens modelled the character of Agnes Wickfield after Georgina and Mary. He described his impressions in
4760-655: The Royal Academy of Music —he spent the day at the Marshalsea. Dickens later used the prison as a setting in Little Dorrit . To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station , where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made
4879-451: The 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers , a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years, Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered
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4998-554: The 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it. From Richmond, Virginia , Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward, with brief pauses in Cincinnati and Louisville, to St. Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie,
5117-844: The 18th-century magazines Tatler and The Spectator . Dickens was perturbed by the return to power of the Tories, whom he described as "people whom, politically, I despise and abhor." He had been tempted to stand for the Liberals in Reading, but decided against it due to financial straits. He wrote three anti-Tory verse satires ("The Fine Old English Gentleman", "The Quack Doctor's Proclamation", and "Subjects for Painters") which were published in The Examiner . On 22 January 1842, Dickens and his wife arrived in Boston , Massachusetts, aboard
5236-463: The 1990s. There have been many music and theatre venues on the street, including the Soho Theatre , which presents new plays and stand-up comedy. The celebrated Gargoyle Club ran for 27 years in the upper floors at number 69, an address that also housed the nightclub Billy's in its cellars during the late 1970s. There, New Romanticism , a landmark youth movement, took root. On 10 July 2009
5355-695: The Catholic Church as "that curse upon the world." Dickens also rejected the Evangelical conviction that the Bible was the infallible word of God. His ideas on Biblical interpretation were similar to the Liberal Anglican Arthur Penrhyn Stanley 's doctrine of " progressive revelation ". Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referred to Dickens as "that great Christian writer". In December 1845, Dickens took up
5474-690: The Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald . At the age of seven, he first saw Joseph Grimaldi —the father of modern clowning —perform at the Star Theatre in Rochester , Kent. He later imitated Grimaldi's clowning on several occasions, and would also edit the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi . He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief work as
5593-695: The First Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade strongly recommended that the theatre be closed. Santley had the theatre rebuilt, hiring architect Thomas Verity , who provided additional exits, and it reopened in 1883, with Santley receiving praise for the renovations. Many of the productions in these years were opera-bouffes adapted from the French. M. L. Mayer, formerly of the Gaiety Theatre , staged twice-yearly seasons of plays in French. The Coquelins and other luminaries of
5712-408: The French. M. L. Mayer and plays in French. It was increasingly hard for the theatre to compete with larger new London theatres. In 1891, the theatre started a policy of modern drama, presenting plays by Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw . When the theatre finally had a great success, with Charley's Aunt in 1892, its popularity led to its transference after only a month to a larger theatre. In 1895–96
5831-754: The Glen . In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Again, the theatre was threatened with closure by the authorities, but Santley had it rebuilt again in 1906 to meet safety requirements. After redecoration in French Regency style, which increased the capacity of the theatre to 657 seats, the Royalty reopened on 4 January 1906 with a season of Theatre Français directed by Gaston Mayer. Sarah Bernhardt led her own company in La Tosca, Phedre and La Dame aux Camelias in 1907. In 1911, J. E. Vedrenne and Dennis Eadie acquired
5950-550: The Riots of 'Eighty , as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd has called Barnaby Rudge "one of Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding, novels". The poet Edgar Allan Poe read Barnaby Rudge , and the talking raven that featured in the novel inspired in part Poe's 1845 poem " The Raven ". In
6069-629: The Royalty, Pauline Rita appeared under Carte's management as Gustave Muller in The Duke's Daughter . In 1877, Kate Santley "seems to have acquired the head lease." She controlled the theatre for nearly 30 years. Carte joined forces with Santley in January 1877 to present Lischen and Fritzen , Jacques Offenbach 's Orpheus in the Underworld , and Carte's own operetta, Happy Hampstead written with his secretary, Frank Desprez . Later that year,
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#17327733446716188-553: The US ended with a trip to Canada—Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston and Montreal—where he appeared on stage in light comedies. Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol , written in 1843, which was followed by The Chimes in 1844 and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. Of these, A Christmas Carol was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote
6307-518: The age of 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre—he became an early member of the Garrick Club —he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate
6426-555: The argument made to the Lord Chamberlain that the theatre had been on the site before the development of the inflammatory trades nearby. J. B. Priestley 's I Have Been Here Before was the theatre's last success. The last performance was given at a matinee on 25 November 1938, by the Southern Cross Players. Although several schemes were considered for its rebuilding, but with the growing threat of war,
6545-507: The battle despite leading the British fleet to victory. Charles Dickens was also a regular on Dean Street when he was a young actor enthusiastically participating in amateur productions at Fanny Kelly's Royalty Theatre at number 73–74. In 1845 he starred in an adaptation of Ben Jonson 's Every Man in his Humour , which met mixed reviews; Dickens' acting was said to be of debatable merit. Dickens's artistic contemporary George Cruikshank
6664-720: The behest of Sir John Franklin 's widow Lady Jane , Dickens viciously attacked Arctic explorer John Rae in Household Words for his report to the Admiralty , based on interviews with local Inuit , that the members of Franklin's lost expedition had resorted to cannibalism . These attacks would later be expanded on his 1856 play The Frozen Deep , which satirises Rae and the Inuit. Twentieth-century archaeology work in King William Island later confirmed that
6783-479: The best-selling novels of all time. Themes in Great Expectations include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. In early September 1860, in a field behind Gads Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence; he spared only letters on business matters. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her, the extent of the affair between
6902-526: The cast. Still, the reopening was not a success. In 1862, the theatre was leased by, Mrs Charles Selby , who also ran an acting school. She enlarged the original theatre to accommodate about 650 people. She used it to showcase her pupils and occasionally rented it to others. The theatre continued to change hands frequently. It was managed, from 1866 to 1870, by Martha Cranmer Oliver , who featured mostly burlesques , including F. C. Burnand 's burlesque of Black-Eyed Susan , which ran for nearly 500 nights, and
7021-452: The comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer. In 1833, Dickens submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine . His uncle William Barrow offered him a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for
7140-465: The comedic merits of Punch and Judy , a puppet show dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch. In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856). It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's Life of Charles Dickens . During this period, he worked closely with
7259-488: The couple returned to lodgings at Furnival's Inn . The first of their ten children , Charles, was born in January 1837 and a few months later the family set up home in Bloomsbury at 48 Doughty Street, London (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839. Dickens's younger brother Frederick and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary Hogarth moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after
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#17327733446717378-425: The day before setting sail for the Battle of Trafalgar . He spent the night drawing up his final battleplans, including the masterstroke of painting identifiable gold and black checks on the ships. He is said to have spent the early part of the evening at a nearby undertakers selecting the coffin he would like to be buried in were the battle not to go according to plan, which proved to be time well spent, for he died in
7497-453: The early 1870s, who also produced mostly burlesques and comedies, including Gilbert's The Realm of Joy and Ought We to Visit Her? On 25 March 1875 the Royalty, under the direction of Selina Dolaro , enjoyed an historic success with Trial by Jury . In 1877, Kate Santley took control of the theatre, running it for nearly 30 years. She had the theatre rebuilt and it reopened in 1883. In this period, it featured opera-bouffes adapted from
7616-426: The editorship of the London-based Daily News , a liberal paper through which Dickens hoped to advocate, in his own words, "the Principles of Progress and Improvement, of Education and Civil and Religious Liberty and Equal Legislation." Among the other contributors Dickens chose to write for the paper were the radical economist Thomas Hodgskin and the social reformer Douglas William Jerrold , who frequently attacked
7735-424: The event, but reserved his fury for Indians, wishing that he was the commander-in-chief in India so that he would be able to "do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested." In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for The Frozen Deep , which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had written. Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan , and this passion
7854-406: The expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act , Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left the Marshalsea, for the home of Mrs Roylance. Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family and
7973-550: The family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia . When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness and thence to Chatham , Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy". Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding , as well as Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas . He read and re-read The Arabian Nights and
8092-519: The first production of the Incorporated Stage Society took place with the first performance of Shaw's You Never Can Tell . In 1900–01 Mrs Patrick Campbell hired the theatre and staged a succession of contemporary plays in which she starred, and in 1903–04 Hans Andresen and Max Behrend presented a successful season of German theatre. Also in 1904, the newly founded Irish National Theatre Society gave plays by W. B. Yeats and, in 1905, it presented an early performance of Synge 's first play, The Shadow of
8211-412: The first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle . His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz —Boz being a family nickname he employed as
8330-404: The following year in England and Ireland. Other works soon followed, including A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), which were resounding successes. Set in London and Paris, A Tale of Two Cities is his best-known work of historical fiction and includes the famous opening sentence "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It is regularly touted as one of
8449-420: The house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents. Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859. As a young man, Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organised religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled Sunday Under Three Heads , he defended
8568-420: The house. The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour 's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress . Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired " Phiz " to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for
8687-616: The knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist. When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden , the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street. Small audiences gathered and watched them at work—in Dickens's biographer Simon Callow 's estimation, the public display was "a new refinement added to his misery". A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On
8806-522: The lower orders as well as in morocco-and-gilt for people of quality; his ideal readership included everyone from the pickpockets who read Oliver Twist to Queen Victoria, who found it "exceedingly interesting". On its impact on mass culture, Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, " 'Literature' is not a big enough category for Pickwick . It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call 'entertainment'." In November 1836, Dickens accepted
8925-482: The main problem was that the tramping of the horse and the roar of the machinery drowned out the voices of the actors and caused the building to vibrate. The theatre had to be demolished to remove the machinery. After it was rebuilt, Kelly reopened the theatre in February 1841, at reduced prices, for a season of her own monologues, but then became ill. She sought to lease the theatre, but it was empty for long periods and
9044-546: The members of the Franklin expedition resorted to cannibalism. In 1855, when Dickens's good friend and Liberal MP Austen Henry Layard formed an Administrative Reform Association to demand significant reforms of Parliament, Dickens joined and volunteered his resources in support of Layard's cause. With the exception of Lord John Russell , who was the only leading politician in whom Dickens had any faith and to whom he later dedicated A Tale of Two Cities , Dickens believed that
9163-523: The midst of all his activity during this period, there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while Richard Bentley signed over all his rights in Oliver Twist . Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerged; in Broadstairs he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to
9282-624: The most in common." Dickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism and 19th-century evangelicalism , seeing both as extremes of Christianity and likely to limit personal expression, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like spiritualism , all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity, as shown in the book he wrote for his family in 1846. While Dickens advocated equal rights for Catholics in England, he strongly disliked how individual civil liberties were often threatened in countries where Catholicism predominated and referred to
9401-522: The next decade, in which he was to write only two novels. His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in Nicholas Nickleby , and he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more
9520-456: The novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins . In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent . As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare 's Henry IV, Part 1 and this literary connection pleased him. During this time Dickens was also the publisher, editor and
9639-512: The other children. During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His "Drooping Buds" essay in Household Words earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success. Dickens, whose philanthropy
9758-617: The peace of the world, and would be a rock in Louis Napoleon 's way," and that "I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born." Dickens also published dozens of writings in Household Words supporting vaccination , including multiple laudations for vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner . Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 , Dickens joined in the widespread criticism of the East India Company for its role in
9877-399: The people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. "Look into your churches—diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark
9996-442: The place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as
10115-609: The political aristocracy and their incompetence were the death of England. When he and Layard were accused of fomenting class conflict, Dickens replied that the classes were already in opposition and the fault was with the aristocratic class. Dickens used his pulpit in Household Words to champion the Reform Association. He also commented on foreign affairs, declaring his support for Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini , helping raise funds for their campaigns and stating that "a united Italy would be of vast importance to
10234-478: The position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany , a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. In 1836, as he finished the last instalments of The Pickwick Papers , he began writing the beginning instalments of Oliver Twist —writing as many as 90 pages a month—while continuing work on Bentley's and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. Oliver Twist , published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories and
10353-662: The principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately sent a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark , editor of the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker , saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the New-York Tribune and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell began proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co to seek written confirmation of Powell's guilt. Dickens did receive
10472-605: The rigid gloom that reigns over everything around." Dickens honoured the figure of Jesus Christ . He is regarded as a professing Christian. His son, Henry Fielding Dickens , described him as someone who "possessed deep religious convictions". In the early 1840s, he had shown an interest in Unitarian Christianity and Robert Browning remarked that "Mr Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian." Professor Gary Colledge has written that he "never strayed from his attachment to popular lay Anglicanism ". Dickens authored
10591-531: The sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the "sad sea waves". She finally got free, and afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841, he precipitously set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America. Master Humphrey's Clock was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, an appreciation that had begun with his childhood reading of
10710-408: The serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at
10829-543: The story. The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers and, although the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity. The final instalment sold 40,000 copies. On the impact of the character, The Paris Review stated, "arguably the most historic bump in English publishing
10948-510: The theatre after the war as did Noël Coward 's The Vortex . In 1932, While Parents Sleep was a hit. The theatre closed in 1938 and was demolished in 1953. The actress Frances Maria "Fanny" Kelly used the fortune saved from her highly popular career to establish a dramatic academy with a 200-seat theatre attached. The architect of the theatre was Samuel Beazley . The theatre and school were completed in 1837. Kelly's engineer friend, Rowland Macdonald Stephenson , persuaded her to build into
11067-529: The theatre in May 1918. A post-war success was the concert-party entertainment, The Co-Optimists , first staged in 1921. The year 1924 saw the first West End production at the theatre of Noël Coward 's The Vortex. Juno and the Paycock was mounted in 1925, and Ibsen's Pillars of Society played in 1926. Another hit for the Royalty was in 1932 with While Parents Sleep . By 1936 the danger of fire from celluloid stores and other adjacent properties overrided
11186-487: The theatre new machinery that he had invented to move the stage and scenery; theoretically a significant step forward in theatre technology. It took more than two years to install the machinery in the theatre. The theatre was "obscurely sited [and] perilously combustible", but it had "a relatively spacious stage, and Beazley's work in the auditorium was thought pretty." The Times described the fashionable little theatre as "most elegantly fitted up and appointed, and painted in
11305-604: The theatre remained empty and soon became derelict. It was damaged in the World War II Blitz . The Royalty was demolished in 1953 and a block of offices, Royalty House, was erected on the site. A modern Royalty Theatre was opened in the basement of an office block at Portugal Street near Aldwych in 1960. This was bought by the London School of Economics and renamed the Peacock Theatre in 1996. It
11424-440: The theatre underwent another renovation. Arthur Bourchier 's The Chili Widow ran for over 300 nights. In the new century, Mrs Patrick Campbell played at the theatre. After another renovation in 1906, Sarah Bernhardt led her own company in a season. In 1912, Milestones , by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch had over 600 performances. The Man Who Stayed at Home played for 584 performances. The Co-Optimists played at
11543-462: The theatre, and in 1912, they staged Milestones , by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblauch (later Knoblock), which had over 600 performances. Owen Nares , Gladys Cooper and Lynn Fontanne appeared at the theatre early in their careers. The Man Who Stayed at Home was a hit at the Royalty in 1914, playing for 584 performances. Henry Daniell starred as Bobby Gilmour in The Man from Toronto at
11662-465: The theatre, in a single private London performance on 13 March 1891. The Lord Chamberlain's Office censorship was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Independent Theatre Society , which included Thomas Hardy and Henry James among its members. Again, for the Society, George Bernard Shaw premièred Widowers' Houses , his first play, here the following year. When the theatre finally had
11781-402: The theatre, under the direction of Madame Selina Dolaro , enjoyed an historic success with Trial by Jury , the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera produced by Richard D'Oyly Carte . It premiered together with Jacques Offenbach 's La Périchole and another one-act farce, Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata . Carte soon moved his Gilbert and Sullivan company to another theatre. In January 1876 at
11900-480: The two remains speculative. In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself to a Canon Benham and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers. Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, stated that the two had a son who died in infancy to biographer Gladys Storey in an interview before the former's death in 1929. Storey published her account in Dickens and Daughter , though no contemporary evidence
12019-782: The way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers. His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every creative medium. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1853 novel Bleak House ,
12138-503: The writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again" as he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed". After living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on Dombey and Son (1846–48). This and David Copperfield (1849–50) mark
12257-415: Was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son (1848). In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London, and
12376-464: Was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers and clerks. Captivated with London's theatre scene, he went to theatres obsessively: he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews and Dickens learnt his " monopolylogues " (farces in which Mathews played every character) by heart. Then, having learned Gurney 's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become
12495-566: Was also a resident of Dean Street and it was here that he drew the illustration for Dickens's early works. Cruikshank is perhaps best known as a cutting caricaturist with scant regard for his targets. He was once bribed £100 for his pledge not to "caricature His Majesty ( George III ) in any immoral situation." He obliged and instead created a humorous caricature of England which came to be known as John Bull . Furniture maker William Hean lived at 17 Dean Street between 1827 and 1845. Karl Marx lived at 28 Dean Street between 1851 and 1856, above what
12614-431: Was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called The Living Authors of England with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey ( Dombey and Son ) on Thomas Chapman, one of
12733-516: Was built. Various types of productions played at the theatre, including English Grand Opera . Performances were mostly by amateurs, hiring the theatre at standard rates. At other times, as the Theatre Français , it attracted patrons chiefly among the foreigners in Soho. In 1861, the direction of the theatre was assumed by Albina di Rhona, a Serbian ballerina and comic actress. She renamed it
12852-526: Was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark , London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Mrs Roylance was "a reduced impoverished old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with
12971-405: Was given. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her financially independent. Claire Tomalin 's book The Invisible Woman argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was turned into a play, Little Nell , by Simon Gray , and a 2013 film . During the same period Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal becoming one of
13090-506: Was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated. The popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes that he "found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels. She writes that he assumed a role of "influential commentator", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books. His trip to
13209-423: Was published between 1849 and 1850. In Dickens's biography, Life of Charles Dickens (1872), John Forster wrote of David Copperfield , "underneath the fiction lay something of the author's life". It was Dickens's personal favourite among his novels, as he wrote in the author's preface to the 1867 edition of the novel. His collection of letters included a correspondence with Mary Tyler, dated 6 November 1849, on
13328-415: Was renamed the New Royalty Theatre , and the next year it was leased by Mrs Charles Selby , who enlarged it from 200 seats to about 650. The theatre continued to change hands frequently. In the 1860s, it featured F. C. Burnand 's burlesque of Black-Eyed Susan , which ran for nearly 500 nights, and a burlesque by W. S. Gilbert , The Merry Zingara . The theatre was managed by Henrietta Hodson during
13447-716: Was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of The Pickwick Papers and had to cancel the Oliver Twist instalment that month as well. The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop; Forster soon became his unofficial business manager and the first to read his work. His success as a novelist continued. The young Queen Victoria read both Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers , staying up until midnight to discuss them. Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and, finally, his first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of
13566-621: Was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist . On 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of The Pickwick Papers , Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1815–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle . They were married in St Luke's Church , Chelsea , London. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk in Kent,
13685-402: Was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of
13804-622: Was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel , David Copperfield : "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!" Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town , where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be
13923-552: Was to last the rest of his life. In 1858, when Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18, divorce would have been scandalous for someone of his fame. After publicly accusing Catherine of not loving their children and suffering from "a mental disorder"—statements that disgusted his contemporaries, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning —Dickens attempted to have Catherine institutionalised . When his scheme failed, they separated. Catherine left, never to see her husband again, taking with her one child. Her sister Georgina, who stayed at Gads Hill, raised
14042-561: Was used mostly for amateur productions, including one of Charles Dickens 's productions. Within a decade, Kelly had lost her entire fortune and was evicted from the property. In January 1850 the theatre was reopened as the Royal Soho Theatre , after redecoration by W. W. Deane and S. J. Nicholl, changing its name to the New English Opera House from November 1850, and in the following year an entrance portico
14161-524: Was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West , to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul. Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing; one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000. After separating from Catherine, Dickens undertook a series of popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for
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